April 14, 2009

Sick? Kids Sick? Stay Home!

Since we moved to Portland, we have spent at least one week of every month sick with a cold... and in speaking to other moms, this is the "norm" around here. I fully understand that due to winter weather, rain and close indoor proximities in play areas, areas in which kids congregate are literal Petri dishes...

However, I think these environments are exacerbated by inconsiderate parents who bring their kids, snot-nosed, coughing, and one leg dangling off a wheeling gurney, to storytimes and indoor activities. And not only that, last week, we had the misfortune of sitting next to an adult woman who was hacking up a lung and announced she was in the "middle" of an awful cold... she said this while sputtering all over young babies and toddlers in a tiny room at the back of a library. What is with people who know they themselves, or their kids are ill, but are happy to let you intermingle with them?

WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING? Or clearly, they are NOT thinking.

I will be as bold to say here, since no one has told these people otherwise: IF YOU OR YOUR KIDS ARE SICK, STAY HOME AND DON'T INFECT EVERYONE ELSE. I type this between wiping Olivia's nose from the second gallon of snot to run out of it today... and while trying to prevent my own nose from dripping all over the keyboard.

Preventing the spread of colds is eco-friendly too... no need to blow through tissues, meds, doctor's visits (gas), of which Olivia's last cold entailed us to go to the doctor 3 times in one week.

What's worse is that I stay home with Olivia if we have even the slightest tingle of an illness coming on, in order to protect the very same people who are happy to expose us to all of their health maladies.

Please send this post on to everyone you know. The common cold must have wiped out everyone's common sense.

6 comments:

I agree with you! I am "sick and tired" of snot-nosed ADULTS coughing and sneezing all over the place. (Thereby teaching their children that the day-to-day "I wants" of the world are more important than health.)

We live in a society where people will not allow themselves to slow down long enough to get well.

ARGH!! This is a major pet peeve of mine. I hope people read your post. I'll be sure to add it to my blog. :)

Here, here! I am a teacher at a child care center and am apalled by how many parents bring in their sick little ones. Not only is it not fair to the other children and teachers, it's not fair to the child that is sick. They feel awful and just want to be at home so they can rest. I also believe their colds last longer when not given the opportunity to stay home and get better.

This post pisses me off. Yeah, it would be really awesome if I could stay home with my daughter every time she got sick. It would be great if I could stay if I was sick.

But guess what?

My employer doesn't CARE who's sick, he cares who comes in to work that day. And many, many employers are like that.

If we want to keep our children in a home and fed we have to take them to daycare, sick or not, and we have to work, sick or not. Because not all of us are lucky enough to work places that offer sick or personal days. In a perfect world that wouldn't be the case, but in this one it is.

It's really frustrating to see moms in better social and/or economic positions post stuff like this, because it totally ignores the social context of our situations. I'm disappointed to see that here.

Hi Evelyn- Thanks for taking the time to share your feelings on this subject. I think the real issue here is that your work doesn't allow sick days, and then you are forced to take your child to daycare whether you and she are sick or not. I actually got several emails from people who wrote to me privately, expressing that they and their co-workers were forced to go in to work, even if they were sick. That's the real injustice, that employers are not more accommodating and understanding. Whether or not I work from home or in a job away from home was not discussed in my post. I wrote about a specific incident- a storytime hour at a library. Do you not agree that it would be easy for anyone, sick, well, poor or rich, employed or unemployed, to stay away from a storytime hour where many other kids and adults are in attendance and will be exposed to their illness? I know that some people also commented on this post about the daycare situation, and their points are valid as well... as are yours. We all have issues on the same spectrum, and it's good that these kind of posts exist so we can come to understand each other better.